KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

A conversation with Hanya Yanagihara, author of the best-selling novel, A Little Life, hosted by Richard Wolinsky. This encore podcast was originally posted on March 17, 2016 and was recorded on February 22, 2016.

Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel, A Little Life, made a huge splash in the literary world. This story of a group of friends in New York , this long narrative received terrific reviews and was one of six finalists for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. A former editor for Conde Nast Traveler, Hanya Yanagihara is currently the Editor in Chief (since 2017) for T, the style magazine of the New York Times. She’s lived in Los Angeles, New York and Honolulu, and spent far too much time eating granola bars in overpriced hotels. Her first novel, The People in the Trees, was published in 2013.

Her third novel, To Paradise, was published in January 2022.

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Don Winslow, author of “City on Fire,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera on April 27, 2022.

Don Winslow is the author of 21 novels, many of which focus on crime and the criminal underworld, including The Cartel, The Force, Savages (which became an Oliver Stone film), and The Border. His latest novel, “City on Fire,” tells the story of a mob war in the 1980s in Rhode Island using as a template the story of the Trojan War, The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and other works. This is the first of a trilogy, already completed, that marks the end of Don Winslow’s career as a novelist.

Don Winslow also produces political videos aimed at saving the American democracy from insurrectionists and fascists, and is a vital force on Twitter.

Photos: Richard Wolinsky.

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Jim Harrison, who died on March 26th, 2016 at the age of 78, was one of those figures people call “larger than life.” A novelist, essayist, poet, screenplay writer and master of the novella, Harrison dealt in his work with issues such as mortality, illness, living the solitary life, redemption and absolution, work that, as the NY Times obituary said, captured the resonant, almost mythic soul of 20th-century rural America. Among his best known novels were Legends of the Fall and Wolf, both of which became major Hollywood films.

This interview was recorded while he was on tour in 2007 for his novel, Returning to Earth, which revisits characters from his 2005 novel, True North. The conversation was wide-ranging, touching on not only his work but also life in New York after 9/11, the columnist David Brooks, the education system, and life in Hollywood in the ’90s.

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A conversation with A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic of the New York Times and author of Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth, Hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Encore podcast originally posted on April 7, 2016.

A.O. Scott is one of America’s foremost film critics. Since 2002, he’s shared the chief movie review slot at the New York Times with Mahnola Dargis. His book, Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth, takes a look at reviewing and criticism, at some of the challenges critics face, and at some of the issues that roll across his mind every time he writes a review.

In this interview, he talks about many of those issues, including the rise of algorithms, the relationship between taste and popularity, the relationship between taste and quality, and his own beliefs about aesthetics. Scott also looks at the 2016 controversy involving diversity at the Academy Awards, and how he and Mahnola Dargis divvy up reviews.

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Miranda July, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, while on tour for The First Bad Man. Encore podcast first posted December 22, 2015. Recorded January 21, 2015 in the KPFA studios.

Miranda July is a multi-talented artist, working in film, fiction, monologue, digital media presentations, and live performance art. In 2022, her films You, Me and Everyone We Know is available by subscription on AMC+ and can be rented from Apple TV, and The Future can be rented from Apple TV.

The First Bad Man remains her most recent book to date. In 2020, a film Kajillionaire, starring Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins, Gina Rodriguez and Evan Rachel Wood was written and directed by Miranda July and is currently streaming on HBO Max and can be rented via Apple TV.

From Miranda July’s webpage: Miranda’s collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty-three countries. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; It Chooses You was her first book of non-fiction.  She wrote, directed and starred in The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know — winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. July’s participatory art works include the website Learning to Love You More (with artist Harrell Fletcher), Eleven Heavy Things (a sculpture garden created for the 2009 Venice Biennale), New Society (a performance), and Somebody (a messaging app.) Raised in Berkeley, California, July lives in Los Angeles.

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Margo Hall, Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and noted Bay Area actor, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Margo Hall has established herself as one of the premier actors on Bay Area stages, having performed at Marin Theatre Company, Cal Shakes, Shotgun Players, ACT and elsewhere. A playwright whose work appeared at Berkeley Rep, she has also directed several plays around the area, and currently teaches at both UC Berkeley and Chabot College. She is also a featured performer in the TV series Blindspotting, on STARZ and in the original Blindspotting film.

Lorraine Hansberry‘s first live in theatre production, “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage, directed by Jan Hunter, plays at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco through April 16, 2022.

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